“We used to make them at base camp and eat them on hikes,” Sadie says. She sets the bowl down on the table and reaches for an ancient-looking muffin tin that Imogen must have scrounged up from the back of some dusty cabinet. “The kids couldn’t get enough of them.”
“Gabe wasn’t a camp counselor too, was he?” Imogen asks, sneaking a chocolate chip out of the open bag on the counter. “I can’t really picture him out there on the mountain starting fires with, like, a piece of string and one safety pin.”
Sadie shakes her head. “He was back at home with hisfamily this summer,” she says, voice quiet. She pauses for a moment, eyes cast down as she spoons the batter into the greased tins. “So hey, can I ask you two something?” she begins, still not looking at us. “You’ve known Gabe a long time, right?”
I feel Imogen’s dark gaze flick in my direction; I nearly swallow my tongue. “Um, yeah,” I manage, a flush that’s got nothing to do with my run creeping up my back underneath my T-shirt. “Both of us have, since we were little kids.”
Sadie nods. She wipes a smear of batter from the back of her hand with a dish towel, not licking it off like I would have. “Does he seem—” She stops, seeming to reconsider. “I don’t know. Never mind.”
My brow furrows; I think, very clearly,leave it. Still, “Does he seem what?” I hear myself ask.
Sadie sighs. “He’s just sounhappy,” she says, setting her spoon down. “It started at the end of the school year—he was just such a bear all the time. And I thought it was finals stress or whatever, but we were apart all summer and now we’re on this amazing trip together and he’s so—” She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Really?” I ask. That doesn’t sound like Gabe at all. Back in Star Lake he was everybody’s favorite person, easygoing and sure of himself and happy to get along. Yeah, he’s seemed out of sorts the last couple of days, but I just assumed it was my fault for barreling back into his life like a bull charging the streets of Pamplona. It’s startling—and a littleembarrassing—to realize that of course he has more on his mind than me.
“Have you talked to him about it?” Imogen asks, the voice of reason from her perch on the counter.
“I’ve tried,” Sadie says. “And he keeps saying everything is fine. But then I’ll say something about Indiana or our program or the future, and he gets all weird and cranky again.”
“So is it school-related?” Imogen asks, sounding intrigued in spite of herself. “Does he not want to be a doctor anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Sadie says, the oven door creaking loudly as she slides the muffin tin inside. “Sometimes to hear him talk I don’t know why he ever wanted to be one to begin with.”
I do, although I don’t say it out loud. Gabe’s dad died of a heart attack right in front of him and both his siblings, collapsing at the dinner table halfway through a plate of spaghetti Bolognese the summer Gabe was sixteen. Of course he knows in his head that he can’t bring Chuck back by becoming a doctor. But I don’t always know if he knows it in his gut.
“Look,” I say finally, my chest aching with time and memory. God, what do I think I’m doing, listening to the private details of Gabe’s new relationship? I’ve been down this road before, last summer with Patrick’s girlfriend Tess, and I know exactly where it leads. “It’s been ages since I spent any real time with Gabe. But he’s the greatest. I’m sure it’ll all sort itself out with a little time, won’t it?”
As romantic advice goes, it’s about as dumb and useless asjust be yourselforfollow your heart, but it seems to do the trick for Sadie: “Yeah, no, definitely,” she says, nodding gratefully. It occurs to me that maybe the reassurance was all she wanted to begin with. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Imogen hops down off the counter then, eyeing me like maybe she’s the one in medical school and she suspects there’s something here to diagnose. “I’m going to make coffee,” she announces cheerily. “Sadie-lady, do you want coffee?”
“Sure,” Sadie says. She sets the oven timer, turns around, and smiles at us. “You guys are great, you know that?” she asks. “I’ll be honest, I don’t have a ton of girlfriends. There’s always just so much drama, you know? But you guys are chill.”
Immediately my eyes cut to Imogen; sure enough, she’s looking at Sadie skeptically, head tilted to the side and lips pursed. “Well,” she begins. “I don’t really know if that’s—”
“If dudes have a problem, they just punch each other in the face and move on,” Sadie continues, oblivious. “But with girls it’s always like, ‘well, she said this to this person, so then I did this, and—’”
“Coffee!” I blurt inelegantly, before Imogen’s head pops off her head entirely and flies around the room like a deflating balloon. “Hey, Sadie, want to help me grind the beans?”
Gabe and Sadie borrow Imogen’s car to try to find the house where his grandfather grew up, and Imogen’s got some work to finish up on her fellowship project, so I find Ian readinghis book out in the plant hospital and ask him if he wants to go for a walk into the village. He takes my hand as we stroll down the winding byways, passing carefully tended gardens and a dog snoozing under a mountain ash tree and a truly staggering number of churches. This part of the country looks like something out of a storybook, as if we got off the bus and traveled through time like characters on my apparently silly Highlander show. Even the cars look charming to me, with their steering wheels all on the opposite side.
“Did you know,” Ian says as we walk, “that when pensions became a thing in Ireland in the nineteenth century, there was no uniform system for recording birthdates and ages and stuff, so to prove you were old you had to be able to remember ‘the night of the big wind’ in 1839?”
“That’s not true,” I say immediately. “What?”
“It is!” Ian laughs.
“How do you evenknowthat?”
He shrugs cheerfully. “I read a lot.”
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned,” I tease, but I’m smiling. We pass another church, a repair shop, a post office that from the look of things is only open on Wednesdays. I let go of his hand, excavate my phone from my pocket. “Okay,” I tell him, “so there’s a shop that does all different kinds of meat pies up here that I want to check out, and then there’s a super-old graveyard on the edge of town that could be cool if you’re in the mood to creep on some dead people whowereprobably around for the night of the big wind.”
Ian’s eyes widen, exaggerated. “Do you seriously have an itinerary for this part of the trip too?” he asks. “How is that even possible? There are literally more cows here than people.”
“I’m just trying to make the most of our vacation!” I defend myself. Then I frown. “Wait, do you not like my app?”
“No no no, it has nothing to do with not liking your app,” Ian promises. “I know you love your app. I would never impugn your app.” He hesitates. “It’s just—sometimes having everything so planned out kind of limits the opportunity for...”
